


The Love Around Me

by lalaland666 (orphan_account)



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Aziraphale can sense love, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Missing Scene, Not Actually Unrequited Love, they’re both idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:02:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21850414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/lalaland666
Summary: Aziraphale can feel love– the love for things, for places, for the people around him. He can feel that Crowley loves, too. He loves the Bentley and his plants and the Earth.But never once does Aziraphale feel any love from Crowley forhim.Which would be fine, of course, if not for the fact that Aziraphale loves Crowley like it’s the only thing he knows how to do.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 388





	The Love Around Me

**Author's Note:**

> Okay I’ve been in love with this concept for a while now and last night at 3 am (because when else do I write) I got overwhelmed by feels and wrote this mess. Unbeta’d as always so apologies for that haha

Angels can sense love, and Aziraphale is particularly good at it. 

Most angels are limited to people, to sensing the love that flows off of and surrounds them, but Aziraphale can feel love in things, too. In places, in meals prepared with care and dedication, in clothing where each stitch was sewn with the utmost attention. He can feel the way the humans love each other, the small bursts of shocked love when a stranger catches someone’s eye, the warm, comfortable, familiar love of the old couples passing by, the frantic, dazed love of people who just discovered it. 

He doesn’t feel very much love in Heaven anymore, not since the Fall– Gabriel appreciates his suits, for certain, and Sandalphon is very fond of his commemorative medals, but beyond that there’s not a whole lot– but he doesn’t think much of it. The Fall was frightening. It turned Heaven cold. Perhaps it’s best if it stays that way, if angels don’t go around feeling love for each other. It might be safer. 

That seems to be different for demons, however. 

Or perhaps Crowley is simply unique in this regard, too, amongst all his other ways. Aziraphale can feel Crowley’s love. He can feel the love Crowley has for the Bentley, for his plants– no matter what he shouts at them– and for the spot he tends to settle into on Aziraphale’s sofa night after night after night. He can feel his love for theEarth, for the humans that walk it, even for specific humans from time to time.

But never once does Aziraphale feel any love from Crowley for _him_. 

And that’s all right, of course it is, there’s no reason for it to be anything but alright. He would never want to force Crowley to feel something he didn’t, and he’d never want to push him into anything the demon was uncomfortable with. It’s just… it’s just that… 

It’s just that sometimes Crowley gets a look in his eyes, like he’s holding himself back from saying something, or he stares at Aziraphale for just a little bit too long, his gaze just a little bit too soft, and Aziraphale has to remind himself that he can’t feel Crowley’s love. Crowley must not be interested. Crowley doesn’t love him. And that is perfectly alright. 

Perfectly alright, except for one small problem. Aziraphale is desperately, achingly, head-over-heels in love with Crowley. 

He knows exactly when he realised– 1941, the ruins of a bombed-out church, “little demonic miracle of my own”– but he also knows it goes back much farther than that, farther than he cares to admit. Centuries, _millennia_ of longing gazes, of bitten-back words, of careful distance and barely-there blessings and an Arrangement that was really more of an elaborate facade to get to spend time together. More than that– it’s six thousand years of a strange warmth in his stomach every time Crowley draws near. It’s six thousand years of a sense of comfort that Aziraphale can’t begin to explain. Six thousand years of company that feels like the stars and the sun and the gentle breeze that predicated the first rain. Aziraphale is in love, hopelessly, utterly. 

And he knows, the whole time, that Crowley does not– perhaps _cannot_ – love him back. 

Of course, the problem isn’t that demons don’t love. Aziraphale knows that better than anyone, better perhaps than even Crowley himself. The problem isn’t that Crowley doesn’t love anything. 

The problem is that Crowley doesn’t love _Aziraphale_. 

Well. It’s not really a problem, per say. Aziraphale will take any excuse to share in the demon’s company, and he knows he’s impossibly difficult to tolerate, let alone _love_ – he’s fussy, and prim, and rather too round around the middle, and always at least fifty years out of date. And he moves slowly. Achingly, painstakingly slowly. 

( _I’ll give you a lift. Anywhere you wanna go._ )

( _You go too fast for me, Crowley_.) 

Aziraphale doesn’t think about that conversation, that night, not if he can avoid it. He knows that was his one chance. His only opportunity to feel, even if it would only have been for one night, that his love was reciprocated. And he turned it down, pushed Crowley away in an effort to protect him, and in the process ruined his one chance at even the briefest glimpse of true happiness. 

And then Armageddon comes and goes and ends in a whole lot less fire and flame than was generally predicted, and then Crowley and Aziraphale are riding a bus side by side, hands intertwined– _it’s been a long day, he just needs some support, it doesn’t mean anything, he doesn’t love you_ – back to Crowley’s flat, and Aziraphale is taking in all the plants that Crowley loves even if he refuses to admit it, and he‘s looking at the artwork isolated in bare alcoves with brushstrokes of love painted over them, and Crowley has that look in his eyes again, that look like he wants to say something but can’t seem to make himself do so, and Aziraphale is finding it near impossible to keep himself quiet. 

“Crowley, I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so terribly, terribly sorry.” 

“What for?” Crowley asks, brow furrowed. 

“I.. oh,” Aziraphale says, twisting his hands together in front of himself. It’s so much harder to say it than he thought it would be. 

“You alright, angel?” Crowley asks. 

“Perfectly,” Aziraphale says, forcing a smile. “Absolutely tickety-boo, dear. It’s just… just…” 

Crowley takes a half a step closer, a look of concern in his furrowed brow and pressed-thin lips. 

Aziraphale can’t take it any longer. 

“I love you,” he says. 

Simple. Three words. So easily said, so easily heard. 

Crowley’s eyes go wide. “You… what?” 

“I love you,” Aziraphale repeats. “And I have for a very long time now, although I think I’ve only really known it since 1941, and I’m sorry, but if we’re to die tomorrow I couldn’t– I didn’t want it– not without you knowing. And I know you don’t feel the same, and I don’t want it to change anything–“ 

“What– what do you mean you love me?” Crowley stammers. “You’re– is it, like– you’re an angel, you’re meant to love everything, yeah? Angels love everything.” 

Aziraphale shakes his head, smiling sadly. “Not nowadays, I’m afraid. Heaven has changed rather a lot since the Fall. And besides, it’s… it’s not that kind of love. I’m _in love_ with you. And again, I know you don’t–“ 

“You’re in love with me,” Crowley says, his voice low, quiet. 

Aziraphale winces. “I’m sorry, dear. Just– let’s just forget I said anything, yes? We don’t– it doesn’t– it doesn’t have to change anything, I know you don’t feel the same. I just– I wanted you to know.” 

“What– hang on. What d’you mean, I don’t feel the same?” 

“I can sense love, dear,” says Aziraphale. “And I’ve never felt your love for me.” 

“I’m a demon, my love meter’s all messed up–“ says Crowley. 

“It’s not,” Aziraphale replies, patiently, even as Crowley’s confusion tears further at his ruined heartstrings. “I can feel your love for other things. And I’m not upset about it, Crowley, I’m really not. I do know I’m rather difficult to love, it’s quite alright that–“ 

“Difficult to love?” Crowley sputters. 

Aziraphale blinks. “Well… yes. I thought it was rather obvious. I’m rather over-soft, and fussy, and terribly behind on the times, and–“ 

“No. Angel, stop that. You’re bloody _perfect_ ,” Crowley interrupts. “Exactly the way you are, angel. You’re not difficult to love.” 

“You really don’t need to coddle me though this, Crowley–“ 

“You mean you can’t feel my love for you?” Crowley asks. 

Aziraphale freezes. Blinks. Blinks again. His brow furrows. “Your…?” 

“My love,” Crowley says, taking another half-step closer, his hands reaching almost for Aziraphale’s before fluttering back down to his sides. “I love you, angel. I’m stupid with it. I _love_ you.” 

Aziraphale blinks again. It wasn’t possible. “But… all the time I’ve known you, the way you feel– it’s never changed. I’ve always felt the same thing from you, ever since Eden…” 

Crowley is staring, eyes wide, almost panicked. But when Aziraphale mentions Eden, all of the fear melts immediately off his face, replaced by an almost incredulous smile. 

“It’s never _changed_ ,” he says, his voice soft, gentle, “because I fell in love with you the second I saw you. Or, well, really, the second you told me you gave away your literal God-given sword to a couple of cast-out nobodies. And then you sheltered another cast-out nobody with your wing, and that was it. I was done for.” He takes yet another step forwards, his body _so close_ to Aziraphale’s, so close but not touching. “You never felt a change because there’s never been one. I have always loved you, angel, as long as I’ve known you. I love you. More than anything in the entire universe.” He reaches out, then, long, narrow fingers cupping Aziraphale’s round cheeks, holding his face in a feather-light grip. “I _love_ you.” 

Aziraphale just stares, feeling like he‘s drowning in the intensity of Crowley’s warm golden stare, in the barest brush of skin on skin, the mingling of their breaths in the spare space between them. “You... love me.” 

“I love you,” says Crowley, nodding. “And you said… you said you love me, too.” 

“I do,” Aziraphale replies immediately. “I love you, Crowley, achingly, desperately. I love you more than I ever thought it was possible to love something. I love you.” 

Crowley leans forwards, and there isn’t much distance left to close. Lips meet, warm and soft and gentle. 

The words echo in Aziraphale’s mind. _He loves me. He loves me. He loves me._ Echo in time with the warm fluttering in his stomach, in time with the twinkling of the stars behind Aziraphale’s eyes, in time with the rushing currents of the warm summer breeze that play over Aziraphale’s skin each time Crowley is near. 

Oh. 

_Oh_. 

Aziraphale draws back, just far enough to speak, noticing as he does that his hands had found their way into Crowley’s down-soft hair, that their bodies had closed the distance too and come pressed up against each other, and he uses his newfound grip on Crowley’s head to press their foreheads together, as gently as possible, not wanting to be an inch farther apart than they needed to be. 

“Do you know,” Aziraphale murmurs, “I think I’ve been a bit of an idiot.” 

Crowley lets out a huff of laughter. “S’alright, angel. I was the idiot first.” 

Aziraphale smiles, tilting his head to catch Crowley’s mouth in another kiss. 

Angels can sense love, and Aziraphale has always been particularly good at it. 

And finally, after six thousand years, perhaps he’s learned to see it for what it is.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!!! Kudos and comments are always super appreciated


End file.
